


head in the clouds but my gravity's centered

by acollectionofdaydreams



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda 15x19, Established Relationship, Fix It, M/M, Post-Canon, Road Trip, ignores the finale because fuck that, themes of free will and way more contemplation than is probably strictly necessary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:02:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27770452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acollectionofdaydreams/pseuds/acollectionofdaydreams
Summary: After Jack becomes the new god and brings Cas back from the Empty, Dean and Cas go on a road trip just because they can.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 125





	head in the clouds but my gravity's centered

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written for the Supernatural fandom in like 6 years, so this is rustier than I'd like it to be, but I had to write something to deal with All That Hot Mess. Go easy on me lol and if you're subscribed to me for my Magicians fics, I'm so sorry lmao.

After all is said and done, Dean and Cas go on a road trip.

The whole thing was actually Sam’s idea, although Dean hadn’t taken very much convincing. Truthfully, after Jack took Chuck’s powers and became the new god, they’d all kind of been floundering. The brothers had tried to hunt again at first, but it had been a halfhearted attempt at best that fizzled out after one vamp nest and a garden variety salt and burn. As it turned out, Team Free Will wasn’t actually sure what to do with the free will once they got it. Their singular mission of saving people and hunting things suddenly wasn’t all they had anymore. 

Cue the existential crisis.

Meanwhile, it hadn’t taken Jack very long to figure out a way into the Empty. He promised to restore the peace and quiet that he’d disrupted, forever, on the condition that Cas could leave for good. The Empty agreed with a condition of its own. In order for Cas to never return, he had to no longer be a celestial being destined for a supernatural afterlife. In the end, Jack held the door open while Dean marched right in and pulled Cas out with him, and with the promise of a new and better world to live in, Cas willingly handed over his grace. 

It took one week for Dean to break down and talk to Cas about what he’d told him before he’d died. To let him know that his love wasn’t one-sided and that he could definitely have Dean, if he really wanted him.

Cas took about one second to kiss Dean senseless.

Still, with all that newfound freedom and happiness, Dean was never made to sit still for very long. He eventually got so restless around the bunker that Sam finally snapped and practically pushed him out the door, arguing that some fresh air would be good for him and Cas. Eileen’s tongue in cheek smile betrayed his real motivations, but Dean had agreed anyway.

So, he and Cas went on a road trip. It was late November, too cold for the leaves to have much color left in them, but there was still something beautiful about the haunting, barren trees and endless browning fields that littered their drive through northwest Kansas. They’d decided to go to the beach, mostly because Cas confided that he’d never actually been to one for fun. It was enough of an excuse for Dean, so they set out, northern California bound.

Radio stations faded in and out as they drove, and Dean absentmindedly tapped one hand on the steering wheel along with them. The other was stretched across the console, wrapped up in Cas’s. He’d imagined this exact scenario before, although it had always been a farfetched hope. Now that he had it, the reality was equally everything he expected and also a little overwhelming. Mostly, as the miles stretched out in front of them, Dean was thinking about what it all meant.

He’d tried the whole apple pie life thing once, with decidedly unsatisfactory results. After how terribly things had ended with Lisa, he’d pretty much given up on the idea of it altogether. There was always some new crisis to avert, some new fuck up to fix. He’d pretty much come around to the idea that he’d die bloody before he ever saw the chance to stop fighting, whether by apocalypse or some terrible accident. Here he was though, not a single world-ending problem knocking at the door, with the love of his life at his side for the rest of their human lives. It was almost more freedom than he could figure out what to do with.

It wasn’t the worst conundrum he and Cas had faced though by far. To have a life and the choice how to spend it. Honestly, it was fucking _fantastic_ , is what it was. There was a thrill in the terror that that kind of lack of direction inspired. He’d never had the luxury of not knowing what the future held for him before. 

He was so fucking grateful for the chance to figure it out.

They made their first stop for the night just across the Wyoming border about sixty miles outside of Cheyenne. Cas unloaded their bags from the Impala while Dean booked them a room at a run down, mom and pop motel just off I-80. It was directly across the road from a greasy burger joint, which is where they found themselves for supper after dropping off their things in the room.

It was a real hole in the wall kind of place. The decor looked like it was designed by a biker gang, with a mixture of neon lights and metal highway signs. There was a group of what appeared to be truckers playing pool in the back left corner, the kind of crowd Dean would have tried to hustle in another life. As it was though, he and Cas slid into a table by the window after placing their orders at the register. 

“I can’t believe you let Sam talk you into eating rabbit food.”

Cas shot him a look as he scraped his chair against the concrete floor and sat down across from him. Cas was really taking the whole fragile mortality thing seriously on his second attempt at humanity, much to Sam’s genuine excitement. The two of them went on _morning runs_ together. As in running when there wasn’t anything chasing them. Fucking weirdos, the both of them. 

“You should consider it,” Cas replied as he reached for his salad dressing. “Sam says your diet is, and I quote, ‘a heart attack waiting to happen.’”

“Please,” Dean scoffed, “I’ve lived like this for years, and I’m not dead yet.” He paused. “Well, I mean, unless you count the time I went to hell. Or the many, _many_ times your brother killed me on Groundhog Day, but that had nothing to do with my diet.”

“Dean,” Cas sighed.

Dean grinned around a mouthful of cheeseburger at Cas’s long-suffering expression. He maintained the glare for only a few seconds before his small smile betrayed him, and he simply shook his head.

“I’m just saying,” Cas said to his salad, “that if we’re only going to get one chance at this life, then I’d rather you live as long as possible.”

And well, that sobered Dean right up. He reached his hand across the table and set it on top of Cas’s, squeezing his palm tightly.

“Hey,” he said, and Cas looked up at him a little shamefully, like he knew he’d ruined the lighthearted moment. Dean smiled at him. “Me and you? We’re going to grow old, you got that? I’m gonna be a grouchy old man, and I have every intention of making that your problem.”

The worry in Cas’s brow melted away, and he squeezed Dean’s hand in return.

“You’re already a grouchy old man,” he said sincerely.

Dean pulled his hand away and said, “Wow, rude. We were having a moment there, Cas.”

“Tell that to yourself before you have coffee in the morning,” Cas retorted.

Dean rolled his eyes, but his fake annoyance faltered at Cas’s fond smile. 

“Yeah, okay,” he conceded.

They settled in early after dinner. There wasn’t much to do in bumfuck Wyoming, and it was probably better for them to get some rest and get an early start to the day tomorrow anyways. So Dean was already in his pajamas and propped up against the headboard flipping through the channels on a television straight from 1998 when Cas stepped out of the shower, hair still dripping wet even as he dabbed at it with an off white hotel towel. Dean paused his idle channel surfing as a news report caught his attention.

“ _A local couple was reported missing at Crow Creek Falls Trail last night when their car was found at the trailhead after the park closed. Officials are saying that there are signs of a bear attack, but the victims have yet to be found. Witnesses say…_ ”

“Dean.”

Dean’s eyes shot up from the television, and Cas was giving him a knowing look. 

“You think it’s a case,” he said.

Dean looked back at the TV for a moment, and then he changed the channel. He reached for his phone on the nightstand.

“Maybe,” he admitted, “but Bobby’s got a couple hunters in the area. I’ll send them a text and see if they can look into it.”

There was a pause as he opened up his contacts to search for Bonnie and Ricardo’s numbers. They were plenty smart enough to handle whatever this was, and besides the brief, instinctual drive to act, he honestly didn’t want to pursue the hunt. For once, there were other things in his life worth spending his time doing.

The bed dipped beside him as Cas sat down and scooted towards the center. Dean sent off the message and sat his phone back where he’d found it. He turned to see Cas staring at him with a soft smile.

“We can go, you know,” he said, “if you want to.”

Dean exhaled as a fond feeling spread through his chest and wrapped itself around his ribs. He lifted his arm and dropped it around Cas’s shoulders, pulling him into his side.

“Nah, I’m exactly where I wanna be,” he said.

Cas squirmed against him as he settled and let his arm come to rest around Dean’s waist. 

“Me too,” he replied.

Dean stopped on a Star Trek rerun and smiled as he let his head drop on top of Cas’s and pressed a kiss against his temple. Better things worth spending his time doing.

There was a chill in the air as they set out the next morning well before check out time. Cas was driving, on the grounds that the motel had run out of the crappy instant coffee it usually provided its guests, and Dean had woken up in a sour mood about it. He pulled off about ten miles down the road at a Love’s to fill up the tank, and when he came back from inside the gas station, he had two large coffees in his hands.

When Dean reached out to accept one of the hot drinks from him, he said, “Cas, I could kiss you right now.”

Cas quirked a smile at him and replied, “Okay.”

He leaned across the console quickly and kissed Dean before he could even register what was happening, and Dean eagerly leaned into it despite his mood seconds before. Cas tasted like coffee with too much creamer and spearmint toothpaste. It was an odd combination, but it was so human that Dean couldn’t help but be charmed by it as Cas smiled against his lips.

He took the second cup from Cas and leaned back into his own seat to take a sip.

“You’re spoiling me, you know,” he said.

Cas replied, “Maybe you need higher standards if you think gas station coffee is a luxury.”

Dean laughed at him and settled in to find a radio station while Cas finished filling up the tank.

They made it to Utah by early afternoon and stopped for lunch about an hour outside Salt Lake City. Wahsatch wasn’t really known for anything except being in the middle of the mountains, but even so, it was beautiful. They picked up some deli food from a Gas-N-Sip on main street and took a detour at the first lookout they came across. Dean had pretty much seen every scenic detour the American midwest had to offer during his lifetime on the road with Sam and his father, but there was still something breathtaking about the snow capped peaks stretching for miles in front of them. Something that made him feel small. 

They’d spent the last decade or so fighting for this world, and yet he’d never once planned on sticking around to experience it. It was an objectively depressing realization. 

He pulled off the highway and put the Impala in park on the shoulder of a dusty gravel road. It was too cold to eat outside at one of the picnic tables scattered around the guard rails, but he left the heat on in the car so that they could still take in the view as they ate their sandwiches and sipped gas station fountain drinks. The only station currently coming through on FM radio was some old timey gospel power hour, so he shut it off and reached inside the console for the old Zeppelin cassette tape that had no right to still play given its old age and hours of use. It still roared to life though as he stuck it in the tape deck and hit play.

After a moment of listening to Ramble On, Cas said, “I never really said thank you for the tape you made me.”

Dean washed his bite of turkey sandwich down and turned to face him.

“Well, uh, you’re welcome.”

He wasn’t sure where Cas was really going with this conversation, but he could tell it was going to be one of the ones that punched him in the throat, emotionally. He was getting better at those conversations, but it still felt a little like slowly peeling off a bandage over an open wound. Vulnerability was never really a defining quality of his. 

Cas simply looked out at the mountains again though as a small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

“I listened to it when I wanted to be with you instead,” he admitted.

Dean swallowed roughly, like that didn’t just tilt his world on its axis.

“ _Much of the time I’d rather be here_ ,” Cas had told him once, back when he was engaged in a heavenly civil war. Back when he was secretly working against the Winchesters in a way that would eventually lead to him walking into that pond and not walking out. Dean thought about all those years of him wanting Cas to stay but feeling like he had no right to ask that of him. All those years of Cas apparently wanting to stay but feeling like Dean didn’t want him to.

What a waste of time it all was.

Dean reached out and squeezed Cas’s shoulder before sliding his hand up to rest it on the side of his neck as Cas turned back to face him.

“I always wanted you there,” he said honestly.

Cas’s smile grew a little wider, and he replied, “I know that now.”

They spent a little more time at the lookout talking and splitting the piece of cherry pie Dean had picked up, knowing that Cas was going to go back on his stance of not wanting any of it. That’s why he’d gotten two forks after all. The look Cas gave him over it was only bitchy for a second or two before he dug in. 

They were back on the road by the time the sun was getting lower on the horizon. It was setting earlier and earlier as winter approached and the days grew shorter. The mountains added to the encroaching darkness as they hid the sun from view even earlier than the plains of Kansas had. Dean knew they would need to stop again before they reached California unless they wanted to drive through the night. They could do that too, of course, but there really wasn’t a reason to rush. He knew what the long haul of an all nighter felt like, and he knew that he was getting way too old for that kind of bone-tired stiffness and inevitable muscle aches. Still, he wanted to get out of Salt Lake City and all of the price-gouging tourist trap motels before they called it a night. So they watched the miles stretch on until the mountains gave way to a rocky red desert. 

The desert was never Dean’s favorite scene. It had its aesthetic appeal in the wild west cowboy movie sort of way, but in reality, all that dry emptiness felt unsettling. Foreign. Like you could scream and no one would hear you for miles. Maybe it was just that he was a midwestern boy at heart who was not used to such extremes. He and Sam had hunted a chupacabra across New Mexico once though that kept them stranded in the Chihuahuan Desert overnight on what turned out to be the world’s most boring stake out. He’d never admitted to Sam just how little he slept during his turn at getting some shut-eye. It was something about the lack of trees rustling and the long shadows cast by the painted rocks that they were taking shelter between. 

He and Cas weren’t on a hunt this time though, and they definitely weren’t going camping. They checked themselves into the last vacant room at a Motel 6, which wasn’t luxury by any means, but it also meant four walls and the presence of other humans in the nearby vicinity. Dean ordered pizza because neither of them were in the mood for socializing after a full day in the car, and they spent the night cramped shoulder to shoulder on the single bed watching I Love Lucy reruns and, admittedly, making out more than paying attention to the television.

It was just after Cas had given up on the pretense of watching altogether and flipped Dean over onto his back, pressing him into the mattress with kisses along the column of his neck, that Sam chose to call.

“Ignore it,” Cas said, his voice gravelly and rough against Dean’s skin. Dean dug his hands into Cas’s hair and threw his head back, planning to do just that. Then the phone stopped ringing for a few glorious seconds before it started back up again. Cas sat up with an adorably displeased look on his face, and Dean sighed.

He dug his hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out his phone, sliding his thumb across it and answering with a huffy, “ _What_?”

He could hear the amused grin in Sam’s voice as he said, “Well, hello to you too.”

Dean rolled his eyes, which made Cas laugh as he sat back against Dean’s thighs. 

“I was just calling to check on you guys,” Sam went on. “You didn’t call yesterday.”

“Maybe that’s because we’re big boys who don’t need to check in with mom and dad,” he replied, the sarcasm falling into his voice effortlessly. He was being sort of an ass, but it was his little brother. That was practically how they showed their love.

Cas, apparently deciding that there was no crisis afoot, started slipping his hands underneath Dean’s t-shirt and skimming them across the soft skin of his stomach. Dean gulped as he pushed the fabric out of the way and dipped down to mouth at the skin along the waistline of his jeans. His mouth was hot and wet, and his tongue traced a line along Dean’s hip bone.

“Geez, I’m sorry I asked,” Sam replied, equally sarcastic.

Cas looked up at him through his eyelashes like he knew exactly what he was doing to him, and Dean was torn between flipping him off and begging him to never stop.

In any case, he really didn’t want his brother’s voice in his ear for this. So, he said, “Now, uh, really isn’t a-ah… a good time, Sammy.”

He felt Cas smile at hitch in his voice as he reached down for his button.

Sam was clearly smart enough to figure out what that meant, as he hurriedly replied, “Ew, now I’m really sorry I called. Tell Cas I said hi.”

“Will do,” Dean replied, and then he hung up.

He exhaled as he sat up on one elbow and looked down at Cas. 

“You’re a dick, you know that?”

Cas hummed his agreement as he crawled back up Dean’s body and pressed him into the pillows again.

“I thought you liked my dick,” he said, the smug bastard.

Dean could only reply, “Shut up and kiss me.”

The next day led them through Nevada, which was mostly more desert still. While being stuck in the desert wasn’t exactly appealing, there was something undeniably a little fun about driving through it in the daytime. The wind was dry and the sun warm on his skin, despite the cooler temperatures, as Dean rolled down his window and let his arm rest on the edge of it. Springsteen was playing on the one radio station he could get to come in clearly, and he’d left it alone because Cas was humming along. There was something a little funny about an angel of the lord quietly singing Born in the U.S.A, but Dean decided against commenting on it. It was surprisingly fun figuring out what Cas liked about human pop culture. 

Dean took absolute joy in forcing Cas to watch all of his favorite movies and listen to the music he was raised on, of course, but there was just something super endearing about realizing that Cas really liked watching Friends and knew every word to most Lizzo songs. He and Sam honestly bonded over a lot more common interests than he did with Dean, but that was okay. The morning he’d walked in on Cas singing Truth Hurts while making breakfast would probably live in his head rent free for the rest of his life.

They made it to Reno for lunch, which was incidentally where Charlie was staying. Dean hadn’t really gotten the chance to catch up with her after Jack brought everyone back, but he’d been thinking about her. She wasn’t his Charlie, not really anyways. The girl he’d loved like a little sister was long gone, but it was still her deep down and that meant something to him. So, he sent off a quick text after Cas took over the last part of the morning’s drive and hoped she’d respond.

They were about an hour out of town when she sent him an address to a local diner. He smiled to himself and pulled up the GPS on his phone to set them on the right path.

She was already inside sitting in a corner booth when they arrived. She shot them a somewhat awkward smile as they slid into the seat across from her, and Dean silently longed for the old Charlie who would have tackled them both in hugs instantly. Baby steps, he had to remind himself.

“So, Nevada,” he said as an introduction.

She took a sip of some kind of iced green tea concoction and said, “Yep. Turns out it’s one of the only places the other me didn’t already have a dead or missing alias.

Dean wasn’t really sure how to respond to that without acknowledging the pang in his chest. Cas noticed, because of course he did, and his hand found Dean’s leg under the table with a gentle squeeze.

“Yeah, uh, she moved a lot from what I gathered,” Dean replied.

“She’s not the only one,” Charlie quipped. “Everyone back home moved a lot after the world ended.”

His mouth felt dry as he realized once again that this wasn’t the girl he knew. He’d just started to question if he’d been stupid to ask to see her. It wasn’t like she had any reason to indulge his grief-fueled nostalgia for her alternate self. She didn’t owe Dean anything just because he’d loved a girl that looked like her. But then Cas stepped in.

He asked, “How is Stevie?”

Her whole face lit up then, and she looked so much like his Charlie as she animatedly answered that Dean felt most of his anxiety leave his body on a heavy exhale. Cas leaned forward and asked questions as she explained their new life together here, and Dean reached down to take Cas’s hand. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to when Cas squeezed his hand in return.

By the time they were all contentedly full and ready to hit the road again, his trepidation about the whole affair was all but gone. He stood a little to the side as she and Cas said their goodbyes. Cas’s social skills were one of the oddest and most endearing things about his humanity. He was still clumsy and awkward more often than not, but he made up for that with his earnest desire for connection. He cared about people, plain and simple. Charlie, as odd as this situation was, seemed to be no exception.

Once they’d hugged and stepped apart, she turned her gaze to Dean.

“Thanks for inviting me out,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” he replied. Then he told her honestly, “It’s nice to see you happy.”

She stared at him critically for a moment, that world-weary look behind her eyes that his Charlie had never had. Then she gave him a small smile.

“Get over here and hug me,” she told him.

He laughed a little in surprise, and her smile widened as he took two steps forward and gathered her tiny frame into his arms. She squeezed him tightly, and he closed his eyes against her shoulder.

“I know I’m not her,” she said, her voice quiet in his ear, “but you’re a good guy Dean, and I’d like to think we can be friends too.”

He gave her one final squeeze before letting her go and taking a step back over towards Cas.

“I’d like that,” he said. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t,” she promised them.

The rest of the drive was a straight shot down I-80, and only about four hours later, they arrived at Half Moon Bay. It was a tourist destination, but not so much in late November.

They pulled into a weathered looking B&B with a flashing vacancy sign and got themselves a room before venturing out. It was the kind of place that probably had a waiting list a mile long in the middle of July, but the check-in clerk seemed grateful to see any customers at all at this time of year. It was chilly and looked like it might rain, but Dean didn’t mind. He’d started to feel a little like a kid on vacation when he’d rolled down the window of the Impala and smelled saltwater. Not that he knew what a kid felt like on a vacation from experience, but he could only imagine it felt a little like this.

He and Cas bundled up, at Dean’s insistence because Cas seemed perfectly content to stroll out the door in jeans and a t-shirt. They were still working on the whole weather-appropriate clothing thing. Then they walked down the sidewalk until they reached the small path that led down to the public beach.

As soon as the water came into view, Dean’s breath caught in his throat. Cas paused next to him at the top of the wooden staircase leading down to the sand, and Dean stopped as well.

After a moment of silence and the sound of crashing waves, Cas said, “Wow.”

Dean looked over at him and felt a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth at the awed look he saw.

He couldn’t resist saying, “I thought you stood on, like, the first beach ever created or something.”

“Yes,” Cas agreed, not rising to his bait, “but it wasn’t like this.”

His answer didn’t objectively make a ton of sense, but Dean thought he knew what he meant anyway. Whatever Cas had experienced as angel wasn’t like being human and looking out into something bigger than you could ever dare to be. Like standing on the edge of the vast unknown, no idea what lay in its depths. He thought a little hysterically that it felt sort of like the freedom they’d recently found themselves saddled with. 

He reached over and took Cas’s hand and laced their fingers together.

“Come on,” he said, “I didn’t drive 1,600 miles just to stand here and gawk at it.”

Cas smiled at him, a soft little thing, and Dean felt his chest fill up with warmth as he let himself be dragged the rest of the way down the stairs. It was more than he’d ever dreamed of hoping for, having a hand to hold in the face of the great unknown, but he knew for damn sure that he was never letting go.


End file.
